THOMPSON: Alienation

Heinrich Mintrop had the fantastic idea of studying actual classroom practices and their effects on students before comparing those results with test scores. He found a middle school which raised its test scores by strictly aligning its instruction, narrowing its curriculum, and building more effective student-adult relationships, although it failed to increase student engagement. Another school showed equally high-quality instruction that was lively and complex, but had low growth in test scores. That school scorned the imposed accountability system as "unworthy of professionals."

The other schools followed the normative alignment and narrowing approach, "but in no instances, we found, was better implementation of those strategies reflected in better instruction or more engaged or challenged students." "Schools in both the top and the bottom groups (according to test scores) were also quite similar in the quality of their observed instruction."

I have never understood why educators would assume, at least in secondary schools, why curriculum alignment is a better idea. If a child asks for bread, what parent would hand him a stone? Our teenagers are crying our for connections, authenticity, engagement, and challenge, and we give them elementary school policies, narrow-mindedness, and standardization. - John Thompson